Hey I’m really sorry my previous comment offended it was a poorly judged and poorly written expression of my feelings. Just that feeling of lost innocence and lost security at the point everyone realised it was on purpose must have been incredibly jarring. Pretty terrible to go from carefree to the idea that this could happen at any moment. The British have done enough meddling around the world that half the world bears us a grudge. There were bombings in London quite frequently when I grew up though they got a lot less deadly into the 90’s. Even so, when the train station I used to go to school had a bomb left in it, I had pretty bad nightmares for a while after that. I always had a sense that something could happen at any time from as soon as I was old enough to understand the security posters and the PA announcements about unattended bags. The last big IRA bomb in London was miles away yet it violently rattled the windows in my house. Then there was a break until 9/11 happened and it was obvious that there was going to be a reaction to this. When the wars in the middle east started we knew it was only a matter of time before it happened to us again. So when ~100 people were killed in the Al Qeada train bombings in London. I felt like ‘oh this again’ and there was just this crushing feeling that it was back for real. I remember randomly bursting into tears in a pub that night at the senseless randomness of it.

Whereas you all got yanked into this different awful reality that happens out of nowhere watching this extreme insane next level thing happen on live TV, it’s quite a different thing to growing up with a low level sense that it is normal that someone might want to do something bad to you purely because you live in a particular place in a particular country. I think thats what I was getting at; that my life experience would have meant that when the second one hit it was a feeling of resignation and deep sadness, because I was used to the idea that terror attacks happen. But coming literally out of the blue for you guys it must have been a different emotion, truly shocking especially given how extreme these attacks were and how they played out in full view of everyone instead of in grimy tunnels and smokey pubs like all the stuff that happened when I was a child. Because it was such a shock for Americans I was pretty scared about how you were going to react, I remember seriously discussing with friends wether we thought you would use nukes or if we were all going to end up conscripted to fight with you in some huge war to exact revenge on whoever had done it seems far fetched now but there have definitely been serious global consequences.

This whole Ukraine thing has really reminded me of the nuclear war nightmares I used to have in the 80’s as well. I feel an impending sense of doom about this also. I hope I’m wrong.